


The Sting of Regret

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Reader-Insert, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 20:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12733449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)





	The Sting of Regret

Did he know?

Was your boyfriend aware that you drank yourself to sleep every night? 

You had to think so. He was a profiler for fuck’s sake. How would he not know? If he did, he wasn’t saying anything, and if he didn’t, then he was oblivious as fuck.

When he was home, you were sober, but he was never home anymore, which meant you were rarely ever sober.

And tonight, once again, Spencer was gone on a case and you were alone in the apartment for two, feeling like you were walking through someone else’s place, or even your own old apartment. This wasn’t a space for two people. 

As you plopped back into the couch, the abyss of the blank television stared into you, overtaking you, similarly to how the alcohol was stinging and coating your throat before traveling through your veins. No chasers necessary - this wasn’t for fun. There was nothing fun about drinking to forget.

Again, you tipped the bottle back, the crappy vodka sliding down your throat in the most painful way. This wasn’t a relationship anymore. So why weren’t you leaving? Why hadn’t you just told Spencer that it was over and walked away? 

Easy. Because you loved him. It wasn’t simple though.

Spencer had been everything you’d ever wanted, and even now, basically still was, but there was one thing that you couldn’t get over, and while the clean, harsh smell of vodka wafted into your nose and made you cough, you realized it was going to break you - if it hadn’t already. He was dedicated to his job; there wasn’t a problem with that to an extent - but he was dedicated to a fault, neglecting you and your relationship in the process. After a couple years together, he “had” you, you were his, body, heart and mind, so apparently you weren’t worth the effort anymore - at least that’s how it felt. 

You’d been in such a daze that you hadn’t paid attention to the fact that the bottle had slipped from your hand and fallen to the floor, hollowly clanking against the hard wooden floors. 

Every fiber in your body screamed at you to tell Spencer it was over, but you couldn’t. You kept telling yourself that one day he’d be less focused on his work and more focused on you, so you picked it up and with a final long gulp, you finished off the bottle; there had been almost half left.

The booze burned at your throat as it rose and you swallowed it back and without caring, you allowed the bottle to fall to the floor again. Maybe if Spencer saw you asleep on the couch after finishing off a bottle of booze, that would be a clue that things needed to change.

—-

“Y/N?” He asked quietly as he came in the door after a long night. 

What greeted him broke his heart, but it didn’t surprise him. Too many times in recent weeks, he’d come home after a long case to see Y/N asleep on the couch, either with a bottle in her hand or barely hidden underneath trash. He wasn’t aware of how much alcohol was in the apartment, but she’d gone through a ton of it. He knew why - he was out all the time, but that’s what his job required. It’s not like he wasn’t coming home to her as soon as he possibly could.

All he wanted was for her to talk to him, to truly tell him how she was feeling so they could work though it, but whenever he wanted to talk she was either standoffish or passed out. He’d also seen her lose weight. Her face was looking ruddy and worn. Her hair was becoming more matted, not bothering to shower for days on end.

None of that mattered. Her looks didn’t matter to him, but he couldn’t help but feel like she was slowly killing herself, and if they didn’t talk about it soon, he was going to be brought down too. Seeing her in such pain would drive him toward his own destructive tendencies, and with his background, he didn’t need any help in that department. Even now, he could feel the temptation of the drug and the needle calling to him to numb the pain of seeing her so distraught. He continually fought the urge, but it was getting harder. For herself and him, they needed to get things out in the open. They needed to speak. If there was any hope of maintaining what they had, he had to try; he loved her too much not to.

—-

The next night, he told Hotch he had to be out of the office at 5 o’clock sharp. If he waited until he was done with his paperwork, he knew for a fact that he would walk into his apartment to see Y/N passed out again. 

As he opened the door, he heard clanking on the other side. He knew what that was - he’d done it himself, except the bottles had been much smaller; she was already drinking, had no idea he was going to be home this early, and was trying to hide the evidence. “Hey,” she said flatly as he entered and closed the door behind him. “What are you doing home so early?”

“I told Hotch I needed to come home,” he replied. His voice wavered with concern for her, not wanting to bring this up but knowing he had to. “I wanted to talk.”

“Did you now?” She asked hotly, raising her eyebrows as she turned away to start washing dishes in the sink. That’s what she always did. Nothing disheartening or difficult to deal with would ever have her full attention. “I was starting to think you’d never be home before 11 or 12 o’clock at night.” God, she was so angry, and despite the fact that she’d hidden the bottle, he wasn’t stupid, he could smell the alcohol wafting through the apartment.

“Y/N,” he said. “I know you’re angry with me, but-”

“What gave you that idea?”

Taking a sharp breath in, he started again. “I know. But we need to talk about it. You’re hurting yourself.”

She scoffed and turned around. “No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” he insisted. “Just because you’re not cutting, doesn’t mean you’re not hurting yourself. You’re drinking all the time. It’s going to kill you.”

“Do you care?” 

That was like an arrow to the heart; it took the wind right out of him. “How could you even ask that? Of course I care!” Concern was still his main feeling, but he was getting angrier and angrier by the second. 

How could she possibly think he didn’t care? 

Spencer loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone.

“I love you, Y/N. And I come every night to see you passed out drunk! Why?”

“You’re never home! What do you mean why?! How can you even ask that question?”

“This is my job, Y/N! You knew that when we started dating. I specifically told you that my job was inconsistent like that, and now you’re blaming me for it?”

The anger waved into sorrow as tears began to flood her eyes. Stomping back into the kitchen, she grabbed a fresh bottle of vodka and opened it, taking a sip without breaking her gaze from his. “Fine! Maybe I’m a bitch! Maybe I’m just not strong enough to deal with someone who’s away all the goddamn time. I thought I could handle it but I can’t Spencer!”

They’d been seeing each other for two years. He loved her. He couldn’t…lose her. Why didn’t she understand? “I love you…Y/N…I love you. When I’m at work you’re all I think about. You’re the light at the end of my day. I just can’t be home all the time.”

“You’re never home!” She screamed as she took another swig; he winced as he watched her choke back another burning cascade of liquid. “I wake up, and you’re gone, I go to sleep and you’re gone, I come home in the middle of the day for lunch and you’re gone. Do I have a boyfriend? Because it sure as fuck doesn’t feel like it. I feel like I’m living alone. I’m so sad all the time. I don’t deserve to be depressed all the time because you’re never home. Thoughts are one thing, but actions mean something too!”

This wasn’t fair! 

“What do you want me to do?!” He retorted, the heat rising in his face. This was the woman he loved more than anything in the world, and right now, she looked like she hated him. “Do you want me to quit my job? Do you want me to stop helping people because I should be home with you?”

“Oh, that is not fair!” She cried as she took another long sip from the bottle. “You’re going to guilt trip me because I want to actually see my boyfriend?”

His eyes watered, barely damned up in front of his eyes. Any second now they would fall. “I don’t know what to do Y/N. If you don’t want me to quit, what do you expect me to do?”

Angrily, she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand and gulped down some more alcohol. “…I’m done, Spencer.”

“What?” A tear fell from his eye and onto the floor. “What do you mean? Y/N, I love you. What do you want from me? Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

Spencer looked do determined, but if she asked him to quit, he would come to resent her, and if she stayed, she would continue to resent him. There was no winning here. “This isn’t going to work,” she said, leaning into the wall and tipping the bottle back again. “I can’t ask you to quit, but I can’t stay. I can’t stay with someone who refuses to make any time for me. I shouldn’t be an afterthought.”

Turning around, she placed the bottle on the counter and walked back into their bedroom. She placed a bunch of clothes in a bag while Spencer begged her to rethink this. He wanted to be with her. He insisted he’d do whatever she wanted, but what she wanted, he couldn’t give her - a full life without his job and without resent. “Please, Y/N,” Spencer said, grabbing her wrist and spinning her back toward him. “Don’t go. I love you.”

Her resolve nearly broke as his lip quivered. “I’m sorry, Spencer, but our lives are going in different directions. You can’t quit. I know you. You’d hate yourself if you did, and I can’t ask you to do it, but I can’t stay either.” Without saying another word, she turned and walked out the door, leaving a slew of unspoken words just on the tip of his tongue, the hitch of his breath nearly causing her to go back to him. 

When the door slammed shut, Spencer stood motionless in the middle of the apartment, without even the ability to cry. The tears stood still, only falling when he could find the will to blink. The moonlight called to him from the window. Maybe seeing something so much bigger than himself and his troubles would ground him, but as he approached the window, he watched Y/N go inside the convenience store across the street. Minutes later, she emerged with something in a brown paper bag, a familiar grimace crawling across her features as she drank from the bag. 

As she turned to walk only god knows where, the moonlight followed her, eventually casting her in shadow. He could no longer see her, but she still lingered here through her mountain of soft t-shirts in the corner of their bedroom, the sound of her sobs, which seemed to echo in his ears, and the burning scent of liquor, unfinished, and sitting on the counter like a bad reminder of his loss.


End file.
